A Death Knell for Tourism

A Death Knell for Tourism
(An editorial published by the Cayman Free Press)

The Cayman Islands’ tourism industry is being destroyed, a few hundred dollars at a time. Increasing numbers of armed robberies are taking place in public places frequented by tourists at earlier and earlier times.

The robbers usually only make off with a small amount of money - robbing places like restaurants that don’t do a lot of cash business - yet these dim-witted thugs seem to outsmart everyone here because they continue their crime spree unfettered.

At one of these events last week, armed robbers hit a restaurant at just after 10pm, when some American diners were still inside. The diners left unhappy. We can’t blame them.

One of the reasons visitors come to the Cayman Islands, which is considerably more expensive than most other Caribbean and Latin American destinations, is because it’s supposedly safe. That might have been true in the past, but when a small place like Grand Cayman experiences four armed robberies in five days, it’s hard to promote ourselves as safe.

Make no mistake: There’s already been serious damage done. Our reputation of safety, earned from decades of being peaceful islands, has been sullied in a few short years. Every robbery hurts our reputation more; and bad reputations, once earned, are hard to shake. Just ask the folks in the financial services industry who have been trying for decades to shake Cayman’s now unfair reputation as a money-laundering centre.

Making matters worse are the dismal failures of the justice system to convict those charged of crimes like murder and illegal gun possession. It seems people here are murdered by phantoms and guns never really belong to the person in whose car or home they are found.

Cayman is at a crossroads. While our politicians bicker about things like what someone said on talk radio, the relocation of roads and Legislative Assembly procedure, all of our futures are at stake.

Everyone, including our elected representatives, our civil service, our governor and all residents need to make crime reduction a priority because if they don’t, soon little else will matter.